5,000 acres saved in Great Bay area

Area's conservation celebrated

NEWMARKET — As a child, it was Kerri Merrill's quest to make it from her family's home on Bay Road to the Great Bay on foot. While it didn't appear to be a far trek, the wet marsh made it a difficult task, and Merrill never made it.

By Jennifer Feals

seacoastonline.com

By Jennifer Feals

Posted May. 19, 2009 at 2:00 AM

By Jennifer Feals
Posted May. 19, 2009 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

NEWMARKET — As a child, it was Kerri Merrill's quest to make it from her family's home on Bay Road to the Great Bay on foot. While it didn't appear to be a far trek, the wet marsh made it a difficult task, and Merrill never made it.

This was one of many memories Merrill and her father, Frank Smas, who lived on the 35-acre parcel from the early 1980s to 2005, shared Monday.

They sold the land to The Nature Conservancy in 2005, and joined with local conservation leaders and Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Monday in celebrating the 5,000th acre of land conserved along the Great Bay.

"It's great, but it's bittersweet to be here, knowing I grew up here and so many things happened here," said Merrill. "I'm so glad it will be conserved the way it is — natural — and not be built upon. I'm glad I can come back here and still see it like this."

The Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership reached the 5,000-acre landmark recently. It was the culmination of 15 years of hard work and collaboration from its member organizations, along with Gregg, who has secured $56 million for the protection of sensitive environmental lands surrounding the bay.

"It's such a reflection of the community effort," Gregg said. "Great Bay is obviously one of the gems of our state and an important ecological recharge area for our differing life forms."

When the effort began, Gregg said, the entire area was under huge pressure to be developed. It was the efforts of those in the partnership that resulted in the protection of New Hampshire lifestyle, the quality of the environment and the land, he said.

The Great Bay Reserve, 10 miles inland from the coast of New Hampshire and the Maine border, offers a diversity of land and water areas around the estuary, such as salt marshes, rocky shores, bluffs, woodlands, open fields and tidal waters.

The Great Bay Resource Protection Partnership is a group of organizations committed to protecting the habitats of the Great Bay region, many of which were present Monday.

Jack Savage, vice president of communications/outreach for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, said the organization is one of those that has sat around the table, helped to identify key parcels and purchased or taken over conservation easements on the properties.

"To think that 5,000 acres has been protected in — all things considered — a short period, that's remarkable and it shows what you can do when you focus a lot of different people and attention," he said.

Newmarket Town Administrator Ed Wojnowski said the years he lived on the bay were "some of the best times" he ever had. Wojnowski recalled the time a moth flew just a few feet away from his face and a bat quickly swooped down to snatch it up.

It's stories like that Wojnowski remembers about the Great Bay, and he thanked the partnership for preserving the land so new stories can be created.

"It truly keeps a large portion of not only Newmarket, but the entire state well preserved for the future to come," he said.